Rob Portman: “I am on that budget conference, and I would assure my friend from North Dakota, who spoke earlier, that we are very…”

“I am on that budget conference, and I would assure my friend from North Dakota, who spoke earlier, that we are very close to having a budget agreement. The pay-go point of order he is offering tonight, he is saying, is to enable us to move forward with the budget. I can just tell him I think there are other ways to move forward that are much more constructive. This motion to instruct, in my view, goes too far and does not go far enough. With regard to spending, which the gentleman from Virginia has just stated is the major problem, and I could not agree with him more, it does not go far enough. Why would we want a budget point of order? Why would we not want a law? By having a law, we have a discipline that will actually work to control spending. It would have the force of law. And I do not know why the gentleman would not prefer what was reported out of the Committee on the Budget and what this House will be taking up after the budget is passed, which is a budget process reform that actually has a law.”